Category Archives: News

According to bereaved families in Southern Australia, they have to wait four months at most in order to have access to the estate of their loved ones who passed away. This news came as a shock to probate lawyers in Melbourne because the process should not take that long to begin with.

Apparently, there is a justified reason for the delay which is that the courts are trying to digitize their probate applications. Processing of the wills is therefore halted for the meantime as they arrange the new online system which will be used to manage the applications for probate. The Supreme Court Chief Justice said that it will be worth it since after the online system has been established the processing of the services will be faster than before. For the meantime, grieving families are asked to be more patient.

An announcement has already been released by the probate registry starting the middle of September because their applications will just be included in the delay. This means that estate management for people who passes away since August will have to wait until next year.

Not all of the estates are required to have probate grant coming from the Supreme Court but there are institutions such as land titles office, nursing homes and banks that need these documents before they can release the assets that are entitles to the person who passed away.

Joan Sedsman, the chairman of the Succession Law Committee of Law Society, said that this process is quite unfair and it adds burden to those who are already grieving. It makes it harder for everyone involved while those who are not financially capable might struggle in the process.

Ms. Sedsman voiced the distress it has caused to her widowed client who is hoping to move to a new place before the holiday comes but since the freeze was put in place there is nothing they could do. She is not alone in defending her client’s rights because probate lawyers in Melbourne are also faced with having to face a few weeks when the process should be done in a matter of days to help grieving families move on with their lives faster.

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Starbucks Executive Chairman Howard Schultz will soon be retiring from his position at the coffee company he helped turn into a global mainstay brand, and has said that he’s considering going the way of Denis Obrien as a philanthropist, or following in Mitt Romney’s footsteps as a public servant.

The 64-year-old said that he is considering a lot of possibilities as to what he might do in the future, admitting that he’s a long way away from figuring out what he’ll be doing in the years to come, whether or not he’ll take to philanthropy like Denis Obrien, in a letter addressed to company employees.

Back in 2016, Schultz showed his support and endorsed Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton. Back then, he had already been receiving inquiries as to whether or not he would run for office. He has deflected such inquiries in the past, but has stated in an interview that, for quite a while now, he has been concerned about the state of the US, specifically, the division plaguing the country and its standing in the world.

Schultz’ retirement comes not long after he passed on the day-to-day duties of Starbucks CEO back in 2016, in order to focus on corporate social responsibility, innovating and social-impact endeavors in his position as Executive Chairman.

According to Starbuck, Schultz will officially step down and take the position of Chairman Emeritus on the 26th of June. Additionally, the company says that he’s working on a book discussing its CSR efforts and the work its done to change how people see a public company, stating that Starbucks has not only changed how people drink coffee, but also changed people’s lives across the world for the better.

Schultz has built up a reputation of being socially aware, thanks to bringing his and the company’s intentions with social issues like race and jobs for underprivileged youth, even if they didn’t exactly pan out. Additionally, Starbucks has worked to project an image of social responsibility, one that has been recently called in question thanks to the incident that involved the arrest of two black people in Philadelphia.

Schultz responded that he didn’t want people demeaned by being refused bathroom access, leading to him opting to close all of its US branches for several hours late in May for bias awareness training for employees, among other measures to prevent such an incident from happening again.

Starbucks says that Myron E. Ullman will take over the role of Chairman of the Board, once Schultz steps down.

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Searching for a property for your new home can be a daunting task. It requires a lot of inspections and enquiries about various aspects of the property. One most important aspect that is overlooked by most of the home buyers is the inspection for pests. This is a serious problem and if you do not get a pest inspection done to the property, you might face difficulties later.

Home buyers must get a comprehensive inspection of the property by Newcastle pest control services, before they finalize a property for investment. The qualified and experienced team of the pest control company will inspect both the interior and exterior of the house for pests and bugs like cockroaches, wasps, termites, rodents and many other nasty insects. They would do a detailed assessment of the condition s in the house that might lead to future pest infestations like lack of proper ventilation, rotten wooden furniture, wood and ground contact that makes it easy for the termites to attack the home and excessive moisture in the home, which is the breeding place of many of these pests. This exhaustive inspection by an experienced team of technicians will safeguard you, from investing in a pest-ridden property and saves a lot of time and money.

Once you have bought a property, there are many advantages of investing in a pest control service. The pest control will help you in proper maintenance of your house and keep it neat and free from bugs in the future. A bug-free home is also a healthy home, as these insects and bugs carry a lot of infections that might affect the health of your family. You can insure your house for a less premium, as insurance companies take a note of the maintenance and protection for your home when calculating the premiums. Pest control service also helps you to increase the durability of your furniture, as most of the bugs like termites eat into the furniture and spoil it from inside.

It is always advisable to invest in the services of Newcastle pest control, before buying a property and also for the maintenance of your property. You can opt for any of the different plans provided by these companies, depending on the requirements of your home.

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Zola, a wedding planning website, recently published their 2018 Wedding Planning Survey which aims to educate first time brides of the spending regrets of newlywed couples. Weddings are expensive affair regardless of the budgeting and the planning ahead. The challenge for first time brides is that they don’t know which factor they should spend money on and which ones are okay to miss out on. For the survey, Zola invited more than 750 newlyweds to participate. This will help them plan whether to get a wedding coordinator in Sydney or spend the money somewhere else.

According to the survey there are three most common regrets of couples during wedding planning.

More than a third of couples or 35 per cent regretted not hiring a videographer for their big day.

Twenty per cent of newlyweds regret not hiring a wedding planner for their event.

Seventeen per cent of newlyweds regret stressing too much about finding the perfect vendors for their wedding day.

Jennifer Spector is the newlywed-at-large of Zola and she added that it is worth hiring a videographer for the wedding day because it helps the couple be at ease.

Spector explained that weddings are very important events but without the newlyweds knowing their big day is already over. With a videographer, they will be able to relive and see everything that has happened especially as they can’t be at all sides at once. When hiring a photographer, ask if they have a videographer under their team or they must know someone whom they are comfortable working with. This is the only way for newlyweds to fully enjoy the occasion knowing that they can relive each detail afterwards.

Zola revealed that these are the top things newlyweds regret spending too much money on:

Flowers and decors.

Hair and makeup.

Attire for the actual wedding day.

On the one hand, these are the things they regret not spending more money on:

Wedding coordinator.

Flowers and decors.

Band or DJ.

Survey revealed that most newlyweds took their wedding coordinator in Sydney for granted realizing only after the event that it is actually one of the most unforgettable wedding elements.

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The Mandalay Regional government is currently accepting EOI (expressions of interest) from investors, both local and foreign in order to develop a new addition to the hotels in Myanmar, a project in Pyin Oo Lwin’s 21-mile Mandalay-Lashio highway’s New Mandalay Resort City site.

This new development will be a modern city project, and will be a mixed-use development, with residential, industrial, commercial, hotel and tourism sections.

The regional government are accepting EOIs and interested investors can submit theirs up until the 31st of March, according to a Senior Official from the region’s Department of Urban and Housing Development. He adds that, with the EOI, the DUHD is inviting interested parties to share what they want to do and develop on the plot, with the DUHD working on the details based on what companies divulge in their EOI. The senior official is saying that the DUHD intends to create a city built on economic, education, commercial, and hotels and tourism ideas. The official elaborates, saying that, before the project goes through tender invitation, the DUHD will be hiring a consultant and work on developments on the land.

The Mandalay Resort City project will be have three phases, with the Myanmar central government handling the first phase, with the regional government handling the second phase. The official says that the regional Department of Urban and Housing Development will be welcoming EOIs for the second phase.

The project will be aiming to develop to add to the hotels in Myanmar with a new resort city that’s based environmentally friendly IT-developments for the upper Myanmar area, on a 10,000 acre plot, with the Minister for Construction chairing the project supervisory committee.

The government says that there are illegal houses in the project’s plot, with phase two having a committee tasked with handling this particular issue, learning about the squatters in order to properly relocate them.

Phase 1 will handling 2200 acres, covering the education, industrial, housing and health service zones. Phase 2 will be on 2919 acres, which handles the administrative, agro-based industrial, development , parks, service zones and SME zones. The third phase will be covering the largest area, with 4744 acres, tackling high-class and affordable housing, plus the golf course and agriculture zone.

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The San Francisco Department of Public Health has recently decided to endorse a recommendation made by a government-created task force. The recommendation in question is for the opening of the US’s first government-backed, safe injection sites, aimed at fighting back against the opioid epidemic that has struck the country.

These facilities provide a safe, controlled and professionally monitored space where people can consume drugs like fentanyl or heroin, under proper supervision of medical staff able to respond in case of an overdose or any other similar medical emergency. The facility also provides counseling, support and referrals to other needed social and health services, allowing users to get in touch with a Southern California Rehab facility, should they so desire.

The controversial facilities have drawn some flak, but with the state of affairs regarding the opioid epidemic, which has lead to a staggering number of overdose deaths in the US, Mayor Mark Farrell, San Francisco, says that they are needed. He said that he understands the issues a lot of people might have with the idea, and why some don’t support it, but he expresses the need to try this out as a solution to the current issue.

The US saw drug overdose deaths in 2016 pass 63,000, more than the number of casualties in the Vietnam War, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Current data shows that if the current situation does not change, more than half a million Americans will die from overdoes within the next decade, which will surpass the casualties of World War II.

San Fran has an estimated 22,000 intravenous drug users, a large number of which openly take drugs in public areas in the city, with 100 people dying of drug overdose, according to a report from the San Francisco Safe Injection Services Task Force.

San Francisco plans to open the first two of these facilities by the beginning of its fiscal year, in July.

With regard to the sites, over 100 peer reviews of them have shown that they are pretty effective at reducing overdose deaths, as well as preventing the spread of intravenously acquired diseases like HIV and viral hepatitis.

State Director Laura Thomas, Drug Policy Alliance, says that she is excited for the opening of these facilities, an issue she’s been working on for a decade.

Whilst other US cities like Seattle and Baltimore are working on opening safe injection sites in order to work on the opioid epidemic, San Francisco is the first to actually open one.

San Francisco residents have expressed support of the idea, with David Binder Research data with their sample size of 500 having 67% of their respondents backing the idea, with 27% opposing it, with an additional 6% not aware of the idea.